UNIVERSAL EDUCATION - MEANINGS, CHALLENGES, AND OPTIONS INTO THE 3RD MILLENNIUM

This paper reviews fundamental challenges to the raison d'etre of publ icly funded and publicly operated schooling institutions during the mi d and late nineties. In particular, it reviews four competing ideas of ''the essential problem''-four problematics, that is, of universal pu blic education. The paper then surveys fundamental challenges to publi c education posed by the recent evolution of the Canadian and American labor markets, an evolution that undermines many of the human-capital justifications far universal education as currently understood. Final ly the paper explores what is left in evolving postmodern reality of j ustification for universal education and how the educational community should be responding to a radically changed context both for educatio n and for work.